🚀 go-pugleaf

In <253.2747d0bd@vger.nsu.edu>, manes@vger.nsu.edu writes:
>In article <90318.162021DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu>, DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>> 
>> Oh, give me a break!!! ARP was a not-for-profit (ad)venture by a group of
>> very talented and enthusiastic programmers, and they did a damn fine job, a
>> lot better than those cheesy BCPL crap-garbage-explitive commands!!!
>> 
>> Feel free to flame me, but stop flaming ARP!
>> 
>> -- Dan Babcock
>
>I have absolutely hated ARP since its very beginning.  The name 
>'AmigaDOS Replacement Project' says it all.  It says to me anyway,
>that Commodore does not know what it is doing and look with ARP
>we can do it "right".

Yup... says it all. That CBM adopted much of ARP's philosophy says a lot too.
CBM knew all along that the BCPL stuff adopted at the last minute was ill
fitting with the rest of the machine, that it presented anomaly's that were
unacceptable and would have to eventually be eliminated.
 
>Well history has proven that ARP has produced more strange problems,
>incompatibilities and other oddities than it ever solved.  It also
>proves that the masses can't do a better job.

Oh? I had problems with exactly 3 of the ARP commands, and no more. I wish I
could have said the same for the supplied Amigados commands. Remember, we are
talking about history here, and not the supplied commands as we now know them,
highly influenced by many third party ideas, ARP included.

>The *only* thing that came from the ARP Project (??) was the arp.library.
>This finally gave a fairly simple (though brain-damaged) file requestor.

Sure, if you don't count better help (command followed by question mark,
followed by another question mark), more consistent operation and use of
options, smaller size (important when HDs were as scarce as meaningful Usenet
postings), added capability in many commands, and so on.

>It is hard enough for most to learn AmigaDOS, adding a command set that
>doesn't work particularly well does nothing but add a support headache
>for Commodore and their dealers, and makes the outsiders believe that
>AmigaDOS needed replacement.

I would agree, though I fail to see where the ARP command set "doesn't work
particularly well". As of the inception of ARP, the Amigados command set did
not work particularly well, or consistently. It _did_ need replacement. The
interfaces to the Amigados functions _did_ need revamping. That CBM apparently
agrees is ample proof that ARP was, if not the total answer, at least a
demonstration that the concepts were valid.

>I support Dan Silva's position on this.

Oh.. does Dan share those views too? I haven't seen anything from him
since that paint program with the braindead file requester, the severe bugs,
and no usage of the ARP library, which shoule make you happy, at least.

-larry

--
The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches and IBM PCs.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
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